THE LINKS BETWEEN MEANINGFULNESS OF WORK, WORK-ENGAGEMENT AND MENTAL WELL-BEING
The objective of this study is to identify and synthesize what is known about links between (job-) meaningfulness, work-engagement and psychological well-being of employees. There-fore the respective understandings of a meaningful work and of healthy work has to be elaborated, to develop the underlying interpretations of subjectivity, in order to propose a perspective for empirical investigations of health-oriented working conditions. It is argued that a proactive thematization of meaningful work (e. g the individual attributions of meaningful work as well as the practices of making work meaningful) is closely related to work-engagement and well-being. A holistic view of these constructs enables a comprehensive understanding of meaningful work and creates further starting points for future research work in Organizational Development (OD) or Human-Resources (HR) Management. The study was carried out as a review of general and relevant science literature as well as scientific publications researched in common journal-databases. The results show, that meaningfulness can be seen as a core, which interconnects different constructs. Therefore, meaningfulness is closely linked to work-engagement. The more meaningfulness employees perceive in their daily work, the more motivated they are performing on a higher level. Meaningfulness is also linked to the Sense of Coherence (SoC), a coping capacity of employees to deal with everyday life stressors. SoC refers to an individual’s generalized perception of environmental stimuli. Thus, if an employee has a high level of sense of coherence he/she experiences work more meaningful and tends to have good coping strategies handling stressors. Meaningfulness has also a connection to well-being. By losing the meaningfulness at work, typical symptoms of burnout can be observed. It is argued, that creating meaningfulness at work is essential for positive work outcomes and healthy employees.